Take photos with the camera on iPhone

Learn how to take great photos with Camera on your iPhone. Choose from camera modes such as Photo, Video, Pano, Time-lapse, Slo-mo, and Portrait (on supported models). Enhance your photos with camera features such as Night mode, Live Photos, filters, and Burst.

Take a photo

Photo is the standard mode that you see when you open Camera. Use Photo mode to take still photos. Swipe left or right to choose a different mode, such as Video, Pano, Time-lapse, Slo-mo, and Portrait.

Tap on the Home screen or swipe left from the Lock screen to open Camera in Photo mode.

Tap the Shutter button or press either volume button to take the shot.

Zoom in or out

On iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone X, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone 7 Plus, toggle between 1x or 2x to zoom in. To zoom in beyond 2x, touch and hold the zoom control, then drag the slider to the left.

On iPhone 11, toggle between 1x or 0.5x to zoom out. To zoom in beyond 2x, touch and hold the zoom control, then drag the slider to the left.

On iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max, tap 2 to zoom in and .5 to zoom out. To zoom in beyond 2x, touch and hold the zoom control, then drag the slider to the left.

Adjust the camera’s focus and exposure

Before you take a photo, the iPhone camera automatically sets the focus and exposure, and face detection balances the exposure across many faces. If you want to manually adjust the focus and exposure, do the following:

Tap the screen to show the automatic focus area and exposure setting.

Tap where you want to move the focus area.

Next to the focus area, drag up or down to adjust the exposure.

To lock your manual focus and exposure settings for upcoming shots, touch and hold the focus area until you see AE/AF Lock; tap the screen to unlock settings.

Take low-light photos with Night mode

On supported models, use Night mode to capture more detail and brighten your shots in low-light situations. The length of the exposure in Night mode is determined automatically, but you can experiment with the manual controls.

Night mode is turned on automatically in low-light situations. When the button at the top of the screen turns yellow, Night mode is on. A number appears next to the button to indicate how many seconds the camera will take to shoot.

Tap the Shutter button, then hold the camera still to take your shot.

To experiment with Night mode, tap , then use the slider below the frame to choose between the Auto and Max timers. With Auto, the exposure time is determined automatically; Max uses the longest exposure time.

Take a Live Photo

A Live Photo captures what happens just before and after you take your photo, including the audio.

Choose Photo mode.

Tap to turn Live Photos on or off.

Tap the Shutter button to take the shot.

You can edit Live Photos in Photos. In your albums, Live Photos are marked with “Live” in the corner.

Take a selfie

Use the front camera to take a selfie in Photo mode or Portrait mode (on supported models).